I’m writing to share J Street’s statements and news updates.

To begin this week, I’m pleased to note the important letter led by Reps. DeLauro, Schakowsky, and McGovern and signed by 92 Members, which received wide media coverage and was called by Israel’s Haaretz newspaper “the most significant effort aimed at capturing Biden’s attention on the Israeli government’s judicial overhaul, the volatile security situation in the West Bank and the looming threat of annexation.” We’re grateful to the scores of Members who lent their names to this important effort.

This week, the Netanyahu government indicated its plans to expedite measures termed by many in Israel a “judicial coup,” despite massive protests by Israelis and an extraordinary intervention yesterday by President Herzog who said in an address to the nation that the judicial overhaul legislation “needs to disappear from the world.” Meanwhile, three Israelis were wounded in a terror attack in Tel Aviv, for which Hamas took responsibility. In the West Bank, Israeli military raids continued to target armed groups, while Israeli settlers continued brazen attacks against Palestinian towns.

I hope you’ll continue to make use of our dossier on the Netanyahu government. As always, you can find our Congressional briefing book, background information on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, recordings of previous briefings and more at J Street’s Congressional Resource Page.

Please don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions.

All the best,
Debra

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Debra Shushan, PhD
Director of Policy, J Street
mobile: (757) 746-0366 | [email protected] | @DrShushan

This week on j street

STATEMENT

IMPORTANT LETTER FROM 92 MOCS SUPPORTS US ACTION ON ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN ESCALATION, THREATS TO ISRAELI DEMOCRACY

STATEMENT

J STREET CONDEMNS TERROR ATTACK IN TEL AVIV

More Than 90 Democrats Warn Biden: Netanyahu’s Actions Undermine U.S.-Israel Relationship

More than 90 Democratic lawmakers on Thursday urged U.S. President Joe Biden to pressure Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government from further damaging Israel’s standing as a democracy. They warned that its current and potential actions are undermining the U.S.-Israel relationship. The letter – spearheaded by Reps. Rosa DeLauro, Jan Schakowsky and Jim McGovern – is the most thorough articulation of Democratic misgivings about the upheaval in Israel over the past two months. It is also the most significant effort aimed at capturing Biden’s attention on the Israeli government’s judicial overhaul, the volatile security situation in the West Bank and the looming threat of annexation… The Democrats warned that the proposed changes would “jeopardize Israeli democracy, which in turn would undermine the very foundation of the U.S.-Israel relationship.” They also noted that removing the judiciary’s check on the coalition would “empower far-right lawmakers seeking to entrench settlement of the West Bank and advance a pro-annexation agenda, undermining the prospects for a two-state solution and threatening Israel’s existence as a Jewish and democratic state”… The letter comes the same day 16 Jewish House Democrats sent a noteworthy letter expressing “profound concern” about the Israeli government’s judicial overhaul, warning that it could “undermine Israeli democracy and the civil rights and religious freedoms it protects.”

The coalition will prepare core elements of its highly contentious judicial overhaul program for final Knesset readings next week, charging full steam ahead and seemingly rejecting pleas to slow the process so compromise talks can take shape. Constitution, Law and Justice Committee Chairman MK Simcha Rothman has scheduled hearings on the dramatic legislation every day from Sunday to Wednesday. If enacted, the law will give the government full control over judicial appointments and ban the High Court of Justice from reviewing Basic Laws, as a central element of the coalition’s wide-ranging move to curb the judiciary and centralize almost all power in the hands of the governing majority… Rothman announced next week’s committee sessions Tuesday, a day after President Isaac Herzog said he was in the final stages of forming a compromise proposal for judicial reform after consultations with academics and civil society organizations on both sides of the ideological spectrum. Politicians on both sides of the aisle have refused to join the talks, with the opposition demanding the legislation first be frozen and the coalition rejecting any preconditions. Rothman’s heavily loaded schedule for hearings on the bill next week in preparation for its second and third readings indicates that he and Justice Minister Yariv Levin are set on passing the central pillars of the judicial overhaul before the end of the Knesset winter session on April 2, as they have said from the outset of the process.

A new wave of mass demonstrations against a government plan to limit judicial independence swept across Israel on Thursday, with protesters restricting road access to the country’s main airport hours before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu flew to Italy… More than 20 protesters were arrested, according to Kan, the Israeli public broadcaster… The disruption coincided with a trip to the country by Lloyd J. Austin III, the U.S. secretary of defense, who was visiting the Middle East, and it prompted Israeli officials to move meetings between him, Mr. Netanyahu, and Yoav Gallant, Israel’s defense minister, to the airport to allow the participants to enter and exit the site by helicopter. The standoff is one of the most serious domestic crises since Israel’s founding in 1948, raising fears that it might damage the economy, particularly the country’s technology sector, and causing unrest in the military. On Thursday, Israel’s mainly ceremonial president, Isaac Herzog, took an unusually strong stance against the overhaul — breaking with his previous strategy of attempting to act as an impartial broker between the sides. Describing the impasse as a “nightmare,” Mr. Herzog said the proposal as it is currently drafted “undermines the foundations of democracy” and “needs to disappear from this world, and soon.”

Three people were wounded in a shooting attack near a central Tel Aviv restaurant on Thursday night, emergency services report. Two of the three victims – all in their thirties – are in serious condition and one is in moderate condition. The militant group Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack. Tel Aviv district police commander Ami Eshed said police had shot and killed the assailant at the scene and are currently looking for other related suspects. Eshed added that since the shooting, all the anti-government protests have dispersed… The assailant, who was shot dead, was a Palestinian identified as 23-year-old Mutaz Salah al-Khawaja from the West Bank town of Ni’lin, near Ramallah. Security sources told Haaretz that Khawajeh was affiliated with Hamas and had spent time in Israeli prison for previous security offenses… The European Union condemned the attack in a statement on Friday, saying that “This senseless act demonstrates once again how urgent it is to stop the cycle of violence and de-escalate the situation. We urge all parties to show restraint and not to react to such provocations”… Hamas spokesperson Hazem Kassem said that the shooting attack was “a quick and natural response to the crime committed today in Jaba’.”

Israeli forces swept into a refugee camp in the Palestinian city of Jenin on Tuesday searching for a man suspected of killing two Israeli settlers, in the latest in a series of increasingly deadly incursions targeting armed groups in the occupied West Bank. At least six Palestinians were killed and 26 injured, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. The Israel Defense Forces said Abd al-Fattah Hussein Ibrahim Gharusha, a Hamas militant accused of fatally shooting two Israeli brothers on Feb. 26, was among the dead. The killings last month set off a violent rampage by Israeli settlers through the Palestinian town of Huwara — where the shooting took place — and nearby villages. Hundreds of businesses and homes were torched, some with children inside, and one Palestinian was shot dead. Despite international and domestic condemnation, Israeli settlers attacked Huwara for a second time in just over a week on Monday, an outburst of violence that came during festivities for the Jewish holiday of Purim and after calls by far-right politicians for the town to be destroyed. The raid in Jenin followed a few hours later. It came amid a new wave of bloodshed in the West Bank, where more than 60 Palestinians have been killed this year by Israeli security forces and settlers. At least 14 Israelis have been killed in attacks by Palestinians. Daytime Israeli raids into the heart of Palestinian cities such as Jenin, once a rare occurrence, have become more frequent and more violent under Israel’s new far-right government… In Huwara, Palestinians said they expected the attacks by settlers would continue, even if the suspected killer was dead.

The Pentagon chief, Lloyd Austin, has expressed his concerns over rising levels of violence against Palestinians in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and warned against acts that could trigger more insecurity. The US defence secretary’s talks in Israel came as Israeli police killed three suspected Palestinian militants in the West Bank and a Hamas gunman shot and wounded three people on a Tel Aviv street. In a joint news conference with the Israeli defence minister, Yoav Galant, Austin said his commitment to Israel’s security was “iron-clad”, but the US remained “firmly opposed to any acts that could trigger more insecurity, including settlement expansion and inflammatory rhetoric”. “We are especially disturbed by violence by settlers against Palestinians,” he added. Austin referred to the proposed reforms at a news conference in Tel Aviv, saying: “The genius of American democracy and Israeli democracy is that they are both built on strong institutions, on checks and balances, and on an independent judiciary.” The interventions by [Israel’s president Issac Herzog] and Austin underlined the unusual depth of concern over the proposals, which Netanyahu – who is on trial for corruption – says are needed to rein in what he calls activist judges who have interfered in political decision-making.

Iran and Saudi Arabia’s breakthrough decision to restore diplomatic relations comes amid the backdrop of growing murmurs of potential normalization between Saudi Arabia and Israel, possibly mediated by the United States. The new agreement restores diplomatic ties after a seven-year freeze, after Iranian protesters attacked Saudi diplomatic missions following the Saudi execution of a Shia cleric. The restored ties hold undeniable significance for all parties involved, and could unleash a domino effect on the greater Middle East, where the feud has either directly or indirectly impacted countries across the region… The Wall Street Journal and the New York Times each reported what interlocutors between the two countries have been saying for months: Riyadh is asking the Biden administration for security guarantees and assistance with building up its civilian nuclear program as a precondition for Israel normalization. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been explicitly transparent about his desire to oversee Israel-Saudi normalization, both as a strategic counterweight to Tehran in its own right and as the crown jewel in his efforts to end Israel’s long history as a regional pariah – all while bypassing the issue of the Palestinians… By most accounts, any such deal between Israel and Saudi Arabia is a ways away, all the more so given Netanyahu’s unsavory far-right government and the record-setting number of Palestinians killed this year.

Iran will evade fresh censure by the UN nuclear watchdog after making “concrete” commitments over the weekend to be transparent following the discovery of particles enriched to near weapons grade, diplomats told AFP on Monday. The development comes after International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) head Rafael Grossi received assurances from Iran that surveillance cameras at several nuclear sites would be reconnected and the pace of inspections increased. On Saturday, Grossi returned from a two-day visit to Tehran, which sought greater cooperation over its atomic activities, following the discovery of uranium particles enriched to near weapons-grade level. Three Western diplomats told AFP on the first day of the Board of Governors meeting of the Vienna-based IAEA that no new resolution criticizing Iran over its nuclear program was planned. “But it remains to be seen whether anything agreed in Tehran results in real progress,” a Western diplomat cautioned… On Monday, Grossi dismissed the perception that he had merely obtained empty promises from Iran over the weekend. These are “not promises, we do have certain agreements which are concrete,” he told reporters in Vienna. “We seem to be moving into more firm ground,” he said, adding that the agency would “of course walk with caution.”

J STREET GOVERNMENT AFFAIRS NEWS DIGEST | March 10, 2023

This week on j street

What we’re reading

More Than 90 Democrats Warn Biden: Netanyahu’s Actions Undermine U.S.-Israel Relationship

Coalition to speed judicial overhaul bill toward final Knesset votes next week

Mass Protests Over Government’s Court Plans Sweep Israel

Hamas Claims Responsibility for Tel Aviv Terror Shooting That Wounded Three Israelis

Six killed in Israeli raid on Jenin as settlers attack Palestinian town again

Pentagon chief ‘disturbed’ by West Bank violence and warns against inflammatory rhetoric

Iran and Saudi Arabia: What Their Dramatic Accord Means for Israel and Biden

Iran expected to avoid censure for latest nuclear steps after ‘concrete’ commitments